Post by bsimon615 on Jun 7, 2018 12:37:07 GMT -6
Yes, you did read that correctly. We will be moving the site of the Deep South Star Gaze this fall (Tuesday, November 6th to Sunday November 11th). Moving is not a decision that was made easily and in a nutshell we feel this decision will be for the best. After you read about the reasons why we are moving and find out more about our new home hopefully many of you will understand the reasons why...….and many of you will be very happy about the advantages that our new home gives us.
Reasons for the move - basically lack of confidence in the direction that we see the Feliciana Retreat Center headed, some specific things that happened at our recent Deep South Spring Scrimmage, and the opportunity to get under better skies with lower horizons elsewhere. As I said before, this was not a decision that we entered into without a lot of thought about what if anything we could do to improve the situation at the Feliciana Retreat Center and what if anything could be done to prevent the problems we had from reoccurring in the future.
So what was/is the problem? The Feliciana Retreat Center has financial issues. Their solution is to try to do more or at least maintain services with less. That is clearly not working. Since Ida left (on-site manager for the 2016 DSSG and for a few before that, things have gone downhill. The current on-site manager is never there, she tries to conduct all business from her home via telephone and the internet and that is not working out. I had called several times prior to the Spring Scrimmage to take care of business and to receive some assurances about things including the internet and outdoor street light status. I was assured on all of these calls that the internet was up and running and that the lights would be taken care of and later that they had been taken care of. As it turned out we never had internet during the Spring Scrimmage and as what needed to be done about the lights was not completely understood and probably communicated to DEMCO by telephone, the street light outside of Barton Hall was on for our first night (one of only two good nights that we had) while Barton Hall itself had no lights as those had been disconnected. Brenda apparently did not really understand what we wanted done even though she said she did. This did effect our first night.
Beyond the lights and the internet we have generally found that for the 2017 Spring Scrimmage, the 2017 DSSG and now the 2018 Spring Scrimmage that the rooms in the lodge are not maintained to the same degree as they were when Ida was in charge. Not too bad really, mostly gritty floors, but not to the same level. The chief gripe however has to do with what went on with the food service. Typically we pay for the meals we order. I understand that and I know all of you do to; but when no one shows up to prepare and serve the food, that is a different matter. Granted that a lot of people did leave on Friday and even more left on Saturday morning, and the weather was bad on Saturday morning, however, the road never flooded to prevent entry and the rain did stop by mid-day and it even cleared late on Saturday night for some observing to be done. On Saturday morning a bowl with Pop Tarts and Instant Oatmeal was left out for us. In addition Dominic the maintenance man, did show up. Since the weather was rainy on Saturday morning we can let that slide. However there was no reason why someone did not show up on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday morning. While we only had 5 or 6 people left, they did pay for meals. They had to go down to Clinton to find food.
In settling up our final bill I outlined some of the issues (lights, internet) and promises made that were not kept. I also said that I was deducting the calculation for Saturday supper and Sunday breakfast from the amount owed. I sent this email out on April 18th and as of today, I have still not had an answer to that email. I waiting a week and then sent out the check to FRC to the proper address. The payment has not shown up on the FRC checking account. Last week the letter with check came back to me as "Return to Sender, not deliverable as addressed, unable to forward". In addition to the address, I had Attn- Brenda on the envelope. Did someone at FRC refuse this letter because Brenda is no longer there? I also emailed her boss recently asking him to check on the payment and outlining some of the issues. No reply from him either and it has now been two weeks. So not much confidence in FRC with all of these unknowns.
More recently I have learned from another source that FRC is contemplating selling some of their timber to make ends meet. That at best is a short term solution to a continuing problem. I also learned that they have had discussions where they say that the solution to their economic problems is to "Attract more star gazer groups". They clearly do not understand what is needed to make one group of star gazers happy much less multiple groups. In addition, looking at the calendar really shows one how little of the annual calendar would be good for events like ours. Only a few months out of the year have reasonable conditions and even then we take gambles.
So, in summary, for the reasons spelled out above, I and others have lost confidence in the Feliciana Retreat Center and that is a shame. We like the location, we like the scenery and when everything is run correctly we have no complaints, but that, unfortunately, is no longer the case.
The Solution - The White Horse Christian Retreat
So over the past week we went back to Square One to see what all our options were, and they were:
1) Stick with the Feliciana Retreat Center in spite of recent problems with the hope that things would improve.
2) Revisit the though of going relatively near by to the Judson Baptist Retreat Center
3) Finding other locations that could meet our needs
4) Abandon the idea of an annual star party, giving people some additional time to do their own astronomy thing somewhere else
#1 - I do not think that FRC is a viable option due to reasons already described. No sense is investing more time in that in spite of any connection many of us have with FRC, myself included. That honeymoon is over.
#2 - Judson has several advantages - committed staff, even better motel type rooms, better food and food prices; however there are disadvantages - closer to Baton Rouge and horizons (tree height) is worse than at FRC, so we would see less sky and we would have to do it on multiple fields with the RV area being further away. I believe they would feel isolated.
#3 - Fold up the DSSG and call it a day. I am getting older, but not there yet. There is a certain appeal to not having the responsibility and being able to indulge a need to get to truly darker skies...….maybe some day.
#4 - Find a better site with truly darker skies and hopefully lower horizons, and I know we have found that in the White Horse Christian Retreat Center. I am providing a link to photos located at the Deep South AstroImagers Yahoo Group website. Not sure if you will have to join to see the pictures, but you can do that too. Look at the photos and then I will continue the discussion about the White Horse Christian Retreat Center in another post.
groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DeepSouthAstroImagers/files/White%20Horse%20Christian%20Retreat%20-%20DSSG%202018%20Site/
Barry Simon
Reasons for the move - basically lack of confidence in the direction that we see the Feliciana Retreat Center headed, some specific things that happened at our recent Deep South Spring Scrimmage, and the opportunity to get under better skies with lower horizons elsewhere. As I said before, this was not a decision that we entered into without a lot of thought about what if anything we could do to improve the situation at the Feliciana Retreat Center and what if anything could be done to prevent the problems we had from reoccurring in the future.
So what was/is the problem? The Feliciana Retreat Center has financial issues. Their solution is to try to do more or at least maintain services with less. That is clearly not working. Since Ida left (on-site manager for the 2016 DSSG and for a few before that, things have gone downhill. The current on-site manager is never there, she tries to conduct all business from her home via telephone and the internet and that is not working out. I had called several times prior to the Spring Scrimmage to take care of business and to receive some assurances about things including the internet and outdoor street light status. I was assured on all of these calls that the internet was up and running and that the lights would be taken care of and later that they had been taken care of. As it turned out we never had internet during the Spring Scrimmage and as what needed to be done about the lights was not completely understood and probably communicated to DEMCO by telephone, the street light outside of Barton Hall was on for our first night (one of only two good nights that we had) while Barton Hall itself had no lights as those had been disconnected. Brenda apparently did not really understand what we wanted done even though she said she did. This did effect our first night.
Beyond the lights and the internet we have generally found that for the 2017 Spring Scrimmage, the 2017 DSSG and now the 2018 Spring Scrimmage that the rooms in the lodge are not maintained to the same degree as they were when Ida was in charge. Not too bad really, mostly gritty floors, but not to the same level. The chief gripe however has to do with what went on with the food service. Typically we pay for the meals we order. I understand that and I know all of you do to; but when no one shows up to prepare and serve the food, that is a different matter. Granted that a lot of people did leave on Friday and even more left on Saturday morning, and the weather was bad on Saturday morning, however, the road never flooded to prevent entry and the rain did stop by mid-day and it even cleared late on Saturday night for some observing to be done. On Saturday morning a bowl with Pop Tarts and Instant Oatmeal was left out for us. In addition Dominic the maintenance man, did show up. Since the weather was rainy on Saturday morning we can let that slide. However there was no reason why someone did not show up on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday morning. While we only had 5 or 6 people left, they did pay for meals. They had to go down to Clinton to find food.
In settling up our final bill I outlined some of the issues (lights, internet) and promises made that were not kept. I also said that I was deducting the calculation for Saturday supper and Sunday breakfast from the amount owed. I sent this email out on April 18th and as of today, I have still not had an answer to that email. I waiting a week and then sent out the check to FRC to the proper address. The payment has not shown up on the FRC checking account. Last week the letter with check came back to me as "Return to Sender, not deliverable as addressed, unable to forward". In addition to the address, I had Attn- Brenda on the envelope. Did someone at FRC refuse this letter because Brenda is no longer there? I also emailed her boss recently asking him to check on the payment and outlining some of the issues. No reply from him either and it has now been two weeks. So not much confidence in FRC with all of these unknowns.
More recently I have learned from another source that FRC is contemplating selling some of their timber to make ends meet. That at best is a short term solution to a continuing problem. I also learned that they have had discussions where they say that the solution to their economic problems is to "Attract more star gazer groups". They clearly do not understand what is needed to make one group of star gazers happy much less multiple groups. In addition, looking at the calendar really shows one how little of the annual calendar would be good for events like ours. Only a few months out of the year have reasonable conditions and even then we take gambles.
So, in summary, for the reasons spelled out above, I and others have lost confidence in the Feliciana Retreat Center and that is a shame. We like the location, we like the scenery and when everything is run correctly we have no complaints, but that, unfortunately, is no longer the case.
The Solution - The White Horse Christian Retreat
So over the past week we went back to Square One to see what all our options were, and they were:
1) Stick with the Feliciana Retreat Center in spite of recent problems with the hope that things would improve.
2) Revisit the though of going relatively near by to the Judson Baptist Retreat Center
3) Finding other locations that could meet our needs
4) Abandon the idea of an annual star party, giving people some additional time to do their own astronomy thing somewhere else
#1 - I do not think that FRC is a viable option due to reasons already described. No sense is investing more time in that in spite of any connection many of us have with FRC, myself included. That honeymoon is over.
#2 - Judson has several advantages - committed staff, even better motel type rooms, better food and food prices; however there are disadvantages - closer to Baton Rouge and horizons (tree height) is worse than at FRC, so we would see less sky and we would have to do it on multiple fields with the RV area being further away. I believe they would feel isolated.
#3 - Fold up the DSSG and call it a day. I am getting older, but not there yet. There is a certain appeal to not having the responsibility and being able to indulge a need to get to truly darker skies...….maybe some day.
#4 - Find a better site with truly darker skies and hopefully lower horizons, and I know we have found that in the White Horse Christian Retreat Center. I am providing a link to photos located at the Deep South AstroImagers Yahoo Group website. Not sure if you will have to join to see the pictures, but you can do that too. Look at the photos and then I will continue the discussion about the White Horse Christian Retreat Center in another post.
groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DeepSouthAstroImagers/files/White%20Horse%20Christian%20Retreat%20-%20DSSG%202018%20Site/
Barry Simon